Think About It: Ban In The Sand

The state land board made official last week what had been a temporary fix by permanently banning alcohol at the sandbar in Kaneohe Bay during three-day weekends. While traffic does historically ramp up during the long weekends, this rule does seem a bit strange. If drinking and drugs and bad behavior peak during the long weekends, are we simply going to ignore that these activities might happen during normal weekends?

Does this new rule now encourage people who can't seem to control themselves to simply better plan their boozing boat rides for regular weekends? A sad fact that the drinking ban made obvious is the number of people who simply went out to the sandbar in the first place for drinking purposes, since the last few months have seen fewer boats and boaters during three-day weekends, thus suggesting that some of those people decided they simply couldn't have a good time without an intoxicating beverage, and thus skipped the Bay completely.

While Happy Hour might be history at the Kaneohe Bay gathering spot on holiday weekends, the recent actions of the land board might invariably encourage more people to spend time at the Sandbar, as people who might have stopped coming out can now feel more confident that the environment will be a much better one for families and for those who simply want to relax. So the trade-off has been made official. You can have a good time at the Sandbar on your long weekends, you just can't drink the day or night away there. Of course, enforcement will still be a must as the ban in the sand now takes permanent effect. Think about it…